Rose Hips and Hawthorn Berry Mead

August 14, 2020

 We have a lot of stuff growing right now including rose hips.  We have a ton so I looked up what I can do with them and found an herbalist who makes a "tonic" using rose hips, hawthorn berries, and cinnamon sticks.  Her site says that rose hips are heart healthy and hawthorn is a mild heart and mind stimulant.  She makes this for the holidays.  So, I gave it a shot.

• Hawthorn berries
• Rose hips
• Pectin
• Honey
• Chai tea
• Water

I ordered hawthorn berries from Amazon.  A 1 pound bag was around 12 dollars.  They arrived quickly and were dried.  I measured out a half pound with my cool little scale that Mary B got me.  I also measured out a half pound of rose hips and quartered them.  I put them all in a pot of water and simmered them.  Not too hard because I didn't want to steam away the taste.  I thought it smelled a little Christmas-y.  I added pectin to help it leach out flavors and let it sit overnight in a honey jar.

The next day I took about 4 1/2 pounds of honey and mixed it all together with some yeast.  I split it into 2 jars figuring when I take the high quantity of stuff out of it I should have about a solid gallon plus of mead.  The plan is to add more rose hips to the secondary fermentation.  I'll also taste at that time to decide if I want more honey, add cinnamon, and possibly other winter spices like allspice.

Loving experimentation!

August 25, 2020.

After this bubbled away for a bit it was looking weird.  Very milky but the fermentation had definitely slowed.  I racked it to a gallon and a half although the half had a lot of head space  While I was looking for the recipe approved cinnamon sticks (which I never found) I came across some chai tea bags.  This sounded appealing to me so I dropped them in.  After 2 days I noticed that the fermentation had completely stopped.  The headspace worried me so I took the half gallon and poured it into a quart jar.  Now the gallon and quart are settling and looking nice.  I kept the leftover for tasting and wow, super delicious.  Very spicy with the chai and the hawthorn adds a nice winter type spice as well.  Mary B says she tastes the citrus in it.  I'm not sure I do but in general it's really great.  I can see sipping this in the winter for sure.

September 7

Surprisingly, after sitting a short time on the refrigerator the fermentation stopped and it started to clear.  It looked beautiful and cleared very quickly so I bottled it up.  I didn't want to put it in 750ml bottles as it would be drunk to quickly.  I also didn't want to spend 35 bucks on small bottles so I tried something new.  I used small 12oz ball jars for some of the bottling and booze bottles for some other.  It came out very pretty and is very tasty.  Can't wait to try it in a couple months.

December 1

We were looking for something different and decided to open this a wee bit early and taste.  Wow, very smooth, very tasty.  I tasted caramel, Mary B tasted citrus.  Delicious, it will be hard to let it age and I only made a small batch :).

July 18, 2021 - Had some for an evening tipple

Blackberry Mead August 2020

 August 10, 2020

The yard has some really pretty blackberries that I wanted to take advantage of and I've heard of making blackberry mead so I figured I'd give it a try.  It should be simple.  I picked the berries whenever I saw them ripe and put them in the freezer.  When I had 2 ziplock bags full, about 1.5 pounds I got started.

• Blackberries - 1.5 pounds
• Honey - 9 ish pounds
• Water
• Pectin

Unfortunately I didn't have much pectin.  I took the berries and warmed them in a pot of water to thaw them.  Then I tossed them in the bucket with a little less than 2 gallons of water and about 7 pounds of honey.  I used a hand beater to mash them and tossed in the yeast.  All total it looks like there is about 2 1/2 gallons.  The next day there were lots of bubbles.  I took a gravity test and it came to about 10-11 ABV.  I like it a little stronger so I added another 2 pounds of honey.  It looks a little on the light side too.

Taking the advice of some online friends I will keep picking and storing the berries.  Once the initial fermentation is finished I will add more mashed berries to the secondary ferment to up the flavor and maybe even the hoochness :-)

August 20, 2020

Racked for the first time.  Hydrometer says it still had 4% to go but I was excited to get it into a clear jug so I could watch it.  I added 2 cups of sugar just to pep up the yeast.  I siphoned it to keep as many bits out as possible.  I had frozen about 2 cups of berries, so I warmed them in the microwave with some water and poured them into a bag in the jug.  The original mead was very light in color but had a slight berry taste.  The berries in the secondary should increase the berry flavor.  There was about a quart or more that didn't fit so me and Mary B drank it while watching a Pink Floyd documentary.  Tasty and potent stuff as usual.  This will be really nice when it finishes.

September 28

I bottled it yesterday and of course saved a small bottle to have while watching some TV.  Then I had a great idea for a Sunday afternoon.  Mary B and I watched the Viking show Last Kingdom (Utrid son of Uthrid) while drinking my mead from the new horns that I got from Fridi on Facebook.  Very good time.

June 1 2021 - In celebration of Memorial Day we had Mrs. Mack's meat, a family favorite of Mary B's family.  Mrs. Mack's husband was killed by a sniper in Viet Nam.  We had a bottle of this mead, very very good.  The berry flavor increased with age.  Will definitely make another batch this summer when the berries are ripe.